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NNE Cold Season Thread 2024-2025


bwt3650
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5 minutes ago, Boston Bulldog said:

Western slope cashing in on blocked flow right now, ski resort cams show that at least some of this is leaking over to the summits

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My fear is it becomes too unblocked for Mansfield after 9-10am.  The Froude numbers are over 2.0 after that, even 2.5.  0.9-1.0 average is the Upper East Side jackpot.  Starting low around 0.5 and then rises to 1.0 early tomorrow morning… followed by 2.0+.

The upslope band will migrate ENE as the system lifts out slowly.

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No idea. Snowing all day, sideways from every direction.

Shoveled the same spots 6 times, but there is no snow on either side of where the wind wants to lay it down:)

Mountain was the same, couple gusts tried to knock you down, one tried to take the pack away while de skinning, drifts were soft and the skiing was quality

Fun storm, windows continue to shake and the temps are down now to 23F


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Our anticipated long-duration storm system began in the area yesterday with some light snow accumulations for the mountains and valleys, but snowfall really picked up overnight, so I decided to head up to Bolton today for some turns. As of this morning, Bolton Valley was reporting 7 inches of new snow from the storm, and snowfall has continued today. Their reported storm total seemed like a good amount for some ski touring, so that was my plan if I was heading up to the mountain alone. My younger son didn’t work until the afternoon, so he was planning to head up for a morning lift-served session with a friend, and my wife had the day off due to school closures from the storm and she was thinking of going as well. Those plans fell through though – the winds were so strong that the Vista Quad Chair was on wind hold before it ever opened, and even the Mid Mountain Chair quickly went on wind hold in the morning. The only chairlift running by mid-morning was the Snowflake Chair, and with most of the Snowflake terrain not open, we generally felt that it wasn’t worth heading up for such minimal terrain. That brought me back to my original plan of ski touring on Wilderness.

Down at our place in the valley we’d picked up 4 to 5 inches of snow from the storm at that point, but the contrast in accumulations was stark as I dropped down into Bolton Flats on my way to the mountain – the snow accumulation there looked like an inch at most. Accumulations were the same at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, and I had to get above 1,000’ before I really started seeing accumulations of at least a few inches. Up in the Village parking areas, it was impossible to find a sheltered spot to get a reliable measurement of accumulations at 2,000’, so I had to wait until I got into the relative shelter of the Wilderness Uphill Route to really check the snow depth. Once one the ascent though, I checked the snow depth along the sheltered edge of Wilderness numerous times, and the measurements were all between 8 and 9 inches, with one measurement of 7 inches. At 2,500’ I was measuring 9 to 10 inches of accumulation, and I never got any reliable measurements higher than that, even up above 3,000’. I stress “reliable” because the winds had wreaked havoc on the snow in many areas. Some spots were scoured down to the old base, and some places had 5-foot drifts. Up at the Wilderness Summit at 3,150’ the winds were absolutely howling – they had to be in the 50 to 60 MPH range at times. Finding a sheltered spot to pack up my skins was a huge challenge. Thankfully, temperatures were in the 20s F, so there wasn’t frigid cold to go with those winds. Photographs of gentled-settled powder snow were difficult to come by today, but if you wanted to get images of drifts… they were everywhere.

Here’s the snow accumulations profile I saw as of midday in the Bolton Valley area for this ongoing storm:

340’: 0.5-1”

500’: 1-2”

1,000’: 3-4”

1,200’: 3-4”

1,500’: 4-5”

2,000’: 8-9”

2,500’: 9-10”

3,000’: 9-10”

The skiing turned out to be excellent though. As long as you avoid any wind-scoured areas, there’s been a really decent resurfacing from this storm so far. We’ve picked up ¾” if liquid equivalent from the storm at our site down in the valley, and the mountains should have had at least that much, so an inch of new liquid equivalent up there seems very reasonable based on what I experienced today. The new snow our there certainly wasn’t fluff; with all the wind, it was actually feeling like typical 10% H2O synoptic snow, and out of the wind, the new snow was substantial enough to even resurface black diamond pitches. So, while it wasn’t sublime champagne powder, it was decent medium-weight powder, and it was much more what the slopes needed with respect to resurfacing.

We didn’t get too much accumulation (about an additional half inch) during the day today here at our site along the spine because as forecast, the Froude Numbers went well above 1.0, but they may have come back down a bit because we’re getting some decent accumulation this evening with these more recent bands of moisture pushing through.

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16 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Isn’t it the leeward side?  Windward is facing the wind.  Froude number quickly rose above 1.0 early this morning.  The snow band migrated eastward from the topographic barrier.

lol no the snow isnt making it over the mtn at this time which would make the snow windward assuming the other side is getting more snow ie underhill, also whats up with the lookout cam its so broken i live by that thing!!

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8 minutes ago, dmcginvt said:

1:26 last night!!! and thats now, pls to fix pf

 

The clock is wrong.  Just a cheap battery operated thing that freezes.  The cam is live.

That is an elevated wind-swept spot on the Lookout knuckle… not ideal but cam station needed to be near power/comms.  The High Road ground-based board in the bowels of Mansfield between the Quad and Gondola is the long term ticket.

IMG_2041.jpeg.dc650bc5574f31125764ca28d40bfbdc.jpeg

 

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8 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

Over-performer…heading back up today, but the reports of 2 feet look accurate…should pick up some scraps all weekend.

Before…8b1a6efd29ed0f065d486f19639b50e1.jpg
After…
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You know what I always look at in your cam images... that trash can out by the road, and how high the snow is up it lol.  The stuff in the foreground is tough to judge, but that trash can seems to give the reading :lol:.

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20 hours ago, dmcginvt said:

1:26 last night!!! and thats now, pls to fix pf

 

The clock keeps freezing.  I'm about to just remove it lol.  I'm not sure why the new Brownrice vendor can't just have a time stamp on it like the old one.  The video is always live and the clock is cheap and freezes up.

High Road Plot did 17.5" in this event (2.5", 11.5", then 3.5" this morning).  The Snow Cam Lookout Plot did like 14".  Given the wind speeds, not surprising the elevated snow board measured less than the ground based one.

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Since we just finished up with December, I figured I’d update the season snowfall progress plot for our site. Since that late November/early December burst pushed us well above average snowfall pace, the season snowfall progression has generally been able to maintain itself at slightly above average. As the plot shows, there were those snowfall lulls in mid-December and late December that have kept things generally in check.

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With respect to December snowfall, it was decent overall. With 45.1 inches of total snowfall, it was a bit above average. To speak to how Decembers have been recently, it was the first above average snowfall December we’ve had in 7 years, and you have to go back 12 years to find a December with higher snowfall (December 2012 with 49.5 inches). Between Great Lakes moisture, northwest upslope flow, bread and butter clippers, the occasional coastal system, etc., strong Decembers around here are in the 50, 60, or even 70-inch range for snowfall when Mothern Nature is firing on all cylinders, but we just haven’t had a full month of that in quite a while. The first 10 days of this month was a bit of a callback taste of what Mother Nature can do though – we picked up more than 30 inches of snow in those 10 days, with no major storms, just a bread-and-butter pattern of clippers and the usual stuff that the Northern Greens do. Keep that up for 30 days and of course you’d get a really solid month.

December 2024 snow numbers and storm data:

Snowfall: 45.1”

Total Liquid equivalent: 4.32”

Number of storms: 14

Days with snowfall: 25

Storm List:

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For the local ski resorts in the Northern Greens, I’m seeing the following seasonal snowfall numbers as of today, from north to south:

Jay Peak: 151”

Smuggler’s Notch: 113”

Stowe: 114”

Bolton Valley: 105”

Based on my numbers, Bolton Valley appears to be just a few inches ahead of average pace, and Smugg’s and Stowe are probably in roughly the same place. Jay Peak is the odd one out at the moment, running at about 133% of average snowfall, and a good chunk of the extra snow seemed to come from that lake-effect period earlier in December, and now probably a bit from our most recent/ongoing storm (28 inches in the past 48 hours). This is well down from when they were running around 200% of average pace earlier in December though.

On a related note, my younger son is off skiing at Sunday River for a couple of days, so we checked on their snowfall to date at their website. I seriously did a double take when I saw the number: 36 inches. 36 inches? I’d recorded 36 inches of snowfall here at our house by the first third of December. Now of course they’re probably using a 24-hour collection interval and will preserve it much better than we will down here in the valley, but it still seems crazy compared to what the local resorts around here have picked up so far this season. Sugarloaf doesn’t list their season snowfall to date in their snow report as far as I can tell, but presumably they’re slightly higher. I assume the Maine resorts suffer from the same sort of thing that much of SNE snowfall does with respect to dependence on coastal systems, but it’s still hard to understand how mountains that far north don’t get more snow.

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You know what I always look at in your cam images... that trash can out by the road, and how high the snow is up it lol.  The stuff in the foreground is tough to judge, but that trash can seems to give the reading :lol:.

Ha..Would be much easier if I just figured out a snow stake in the backyard.


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$129 experience

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Switched to skins after this picture, skied Bolton yesterday for a few hours, the snow depth difference was surprising. I expected it, but man the woods are just full of snow right now up here


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Yeah, not very jay like…but they have the jet running now and there’s zero lines at the Bonnie..Hope you hung out because as you said, it’s really good…

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